90 II j - ALL GREAT WRITERS HAVE DISTINCTIVE STYLES. CROSS@ SINCE 1846 Our Selectlp ™ Pen offers three of them- medium, fine, or extra fine tipS Writing with your choice IS a distinct pleasure Priced from $18 legs in an earnest, obedient way. As- sistant United States Attorney Pritch- ett, a short, fortyish gray-haired wom- an, also had mannerisms that an- noyed J udge West. She was relent- lessly cheerful-often past the brink of smugness. She had a brisk and deliber- ate style that indicated either efficiency or portentousness. All three of the government lawyers knew how to ask the same question four times in a row. Intending to deceive, Patterson had manipulated a fraudulent game of Musical Lending- that was the essence of the government's case. The evi- dence dissected several such loans. To cover up bad credits, it was alleged, Pat- terson took illegal advantage of good customers. He shift- ed loans from bank to bank, and he shifted the ownership of collateral from this shaky borrower to that credit- worthy close friend of Penn Square. In these endeavors, he took advantage of the quaint willingness of many customers to sign blank notes. Under oath, a number of customers recounted how they dis- covered that they had "borrowed" dis- tressing amounts. This close friend testified that Patterson had stuck him for two million dollars; the next one had unwittingly borrowed three mil- lion. Bob Hefner got in the way of thirty-one million three hundred thousand dollars' worth of Mahan- Rowsey Drilling's obligations. Joe Dan Trigg, a devoted longtime pal of Jennings, wound up on a four-mil- lion-dollar note to buy oil-and-gas properties from Saket Petroleum that were worth less than four million dol- lars. One witness quoted Patterson as having said, "Saket has a new partner and he [Trigg] doesn't even know it." Maximo Moorings, the Florida "dockominium" venture that Patter- son had agreed to take off Chase Man- hattan's hands and had renamed BGP Marina, was the subject of two indict- ments. The prosecution wished to make Maximo-BGP Marina a useful mora] example of the depredations that will result when your banker keeps a file of blank notes around for just-in- case situations. Hal Clifford, a blue- grass musician turned oilie, testified that he had agreed, very temporarily, to assume part of the BG P Marina loan only because Patterson had prom- ised that another buyer would be along any minute to assume the entire loan. MAY 6,1985 The other buyer never did materialize. The original documentation of the BGP Marina loan described the col- lateral as "oil-and-gas mortgages," which appears in no dictionary or the- saurus as a synonym for "dockomin- ium." One clutch borrower, J. D. Hodges, testified that he had never promised to invest in BG P Marina. Just the same, he ended up with more than two million of the deal. Many friends of Penn Square became aware of their phantom loans only after the bank closed and they re- ceived past-due notices from the F.D.I.C. Of all the charges against Patterson, the wire-fraud and false-entry indictments arising from the sale of Mahan-Rowsey Drilling to the QOL Corporation ap- peared to stand the best chance of producing guilty verdicts. Hefner, who owned QOL, testified that he had /' -- - never intended to buy the rigs, that no formal sale agreement existed, that he had never authorized the financing of the thirty- one-million-plus Chase Manhattan note. Hefner added that he was con- vinced that the QOL transaction had become the pivotal factor in the deci- sion by the regulators to liquidate rather than to try to arrange a sale of the Penn Square Bank. While cross-examining one of the government's most impressive wit- nesses, a former Mahan-Rowsey ac- countant named Randel Dunn, Patter- son's attorney Burck Bailey did a nice job of clouding the issues. Instead of addressing the accusation that Patter- son had deliberately committed fraud, Bailey dwelt on Mahan and Rowsey's chronic reluctance to behave like altar boys. Bailey's attack was swift and effective. He said, "Mr. Dunn, just to put it in a simple way, Mr. Mahan and Mr. Rowsey lied to Penn Square Bank, didn't they?" The government witness agreed. "And they lied to Bill Patterson, didn't they?" "Yes." "Constantly? " "Yes." "And they lied to you, didn't they?" "Yes. " ". . . And when Bill Patterson found out each time he had been lied to, he was absolutely outraged, wasn't he?" "Yes, he was." "In fact, when he declined to lend